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Problems Maintaining Product Development Innovation in an Agile/Lean World

Problems Maintaining Product Development Innovation in an Agile/Lean World. Agile Austin Monthly Meeting May 14, 2013 Matt Roberts matt@matt-roberts.com Twitter @ multicastmatt linkedin.com/in/ cpgmattr. Why do we care about innovation?. For the purpose of this presentation

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Problems Maintaining Product Development Innovation in an Agile/Lean World

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  1. Problems Maintaining Product Development Innovation in an Agile/Lean World Agile Austin Monthly Meeting May 14, 2013 Matt Roberts matt@matt-roberts.com Twitter @multicastmatt linkedin.com/in/cpgmattr

  2. Why do we care about innovation? • For the purpose of this presentation • Innovation is the creation of new value for a particular group of stakeholders. • It’s worth something (like money) that stakeholders are willing to depart with to obtain. • For a product development company, it’s a source of growth (as opposed to maintenance/sustaining). Growth represents value in these organizations, especially startups or similar smaller groups. • It carries risk and is hard to “manage” • It tends to be fun and creates engagement for the people who create it.

  3. But we’re maintaining velocity! • “Quite a few clients report that agile is anti-innovation. The developers have a vested interest in developing whatever they can produce within the allowable time. They are rewarded for maintaining the velocity of the project, not for their innovative solutions. Note that innovation, as we use the term here, means fresh thinking. We do not mean that innovation is the same as invention — it’s not. Innovation is thinking differently about the business problem with the intention of finding more beneficial things for the business to do.” • “Keeping the Innovation in Agile” - Cutter Blog http://blog.cutter.com/2012/04/10/putting-the-innovation-in-agile/

  4. A funny thing happened on the way to agile…

  5. Can engineers generate valuable product ideas?

  6. Some industry “solutions” • Google’s 20% Time (or is it 120%?  ) • AtlassianShipIt Days • BazaarVoice Science Fair • CA Technologies Innovation Time Out / Hyperformix Science Faire • ..and so many more, based on the concept of SLACK Slack Tom DeMarco

  7. Ca technologies innovation time out • What is an Innovation Time Out and its goal? • An Innovation Time Out, also known as an ITO, is a technique to foster the pursuit of new and innovative processes or products. To accomplish this goal, each team member has formal approval that permits them to spend up to 10% of their business time to work on their own, qualified, innovative ideas. • What qualifies as an ITO project? To qualify as an approved ITO project, the following parameters must be met: • One or more team members may work on any idea that supports any current product(s) or market(s) that CA Technologies is currently in or pursuing. The idea does not have to be limited to the product line that the team member currently works in. • The ITO project must result in proof of concept (POC) demonstration in which working code is exhibited in an open forum hosted by an EMD senior manager. • Code: Is defined as any demonstrable function that creates a result based on a set of inputs. Time frame for demonstrations – Quarterly (or so)

  8. Hyperformix – context

  9. Hyperformix Science faire • Plugged into Innovation (Patent) Harvesting • Team’s reaction to Matt’s insistence on coding examples • Fix a defect • Implement small feature • New tool • Show prototype • How to apply to new domain • New technology • New algorithm • New/improved UI • New/improved utility • Developers and Product Managers LOVED it. Non-developers, not so much—still a bit concerned. Everyone voted to do it again. • Ideas went right into the backlog and were invested in and shipped within weeks! • Challenges—are we just doing prototypes for Product Management? Is this an issue? Time frame for demonstrations – Monthly (two days every other sprint)

  10. What have you seen?

  11. What have you learned?

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